


The Gifts

by isabellaofcastile



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Christmas Eve, Christmas Fluff, Fluff, Gift Exchange, Inspired by The Gift of the Magi - O. Henry, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 01:45:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13136559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isabellaofcastile/pseuds/isabellaofcastile
Summary: in which Viktor struggles to find a suitable gift for his beloved





	The Gifts

Seventeen rubles and twelve kopeks. That was all. He had put it aside, shifting from his checking to his savings over the previous weeks so that he and Yuuri could buy food for they and Makkachin. He logged out of the ATM machine two more times after that, hoping that maybe it just needed to be refreshed—he had sworn that he made a deposit in it a few days prior. And the next day would be Christmas, as well as Viktor’s birthday. There wasn’t anything to do but log out of the ATM and cry, so Viktor did it. The disgruntled line that had formed behind him jeered as he walked away, and Viktor wiped at the hot tears that pooled in the corners of his tourmaline eyes.  


In the years that they had taken away from skating to get married and take a much-deserved rest, Viktor and Yuuri had fallen on hard times. Viktor and Yuuri both taught skating at the rink near their apartment in St. Petersburg, but when that wasn’t enough, Yuuri began finding a second job that related to the degree he had gotten in America. But, even still, it wasn’t enough. The cost of living in St. Petersburg was overwhelming sometimes, but the cost of moving elsewhere were much more so. They had considered asking Yuuri’s parents for help, but he insisted that they keep searching for work and that they kept saving. Yuuri had already taken so much in his years of figure-skating, the financial burdens of training, travel, and his training gear weighing on his parents over the years. But, they wore it with a smile, each flashing brightly when Yuuri came home with his silver medal after the Barcelona Grand Prix, and after his Olympic gold shortly after.  


While Viktor grew quieter and quieter, walking aimlessly through the familiar St. Petersburg streets, he thought of all their monthly costs in his head. Rent, one thousand-two hundred and five. That got squared away a few weeks ago, and utilities shouldn’t be that bad… probably only around a hundred to a hundred and fifty. Internet was only about thirty-five… there wasn’t much more to say. They had paid all their bills, but often at the expense of eating their typical diets and heating their tiny apartment. Yuuri had found an old space-heater from a secondhand store that worked quite well, but was obnoxious to transport from room to room. They had begun to eat more microwaved meals than either could palate.  


As he arrived back to the apartment he and Yuuri shared, he noticed mail shoved haphazardly in the mail flap. On the plaque beside the door, in grimy and old letters, read “KATSUKI-NIKIFOROV.” When the name was placed there, Viktor and Yuuri were still subsisting on their winnings from past competitions, and the money that they had saved up previously. But, the money began to disappear quickly. Makkachin fell ill, and needed emergency surgery. Viktor’s car had begun to show its age, and needed a few costly repairs to keep it going so that he and Yuuri could travel, but more so that Yuuri could get to his second job on the other side of town that there was no reasonable transportation for.  
Viktor finished his crying and cleaned the marks of it from his face. He stood by the window in his kitchen and looked out with no interest. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and he only had 17.12₽ with which to buy his beloved Yuuri a gift. He had put aside as much as he could for months, with this result. What they had saved wasn’t much, but everything cost more than he expected. It always happened like that.  


As he stood at the window, Viktor palmed his hair in his hands. He had let it grow out in the three years since he met Yuuri, and it was now to his shoulder blades. He had wanted to grow it out again, to be more in touch with who he was when he was younger. In a way, he had finally begun to feel like himself, and he wanted to connect with who he was as a young skater that neglected himself. He wanted to ask him, what is it that you’d like? What would make you happy? In a strange way, Viktor felt that he could answer that by growing out his hair. How it gradually grew from his head and reached his shoulders showed to Viktor the subtle but nevertheless present ways that he had finally navigated back to _himself_.  


He and Yuuri were both proud of two things which they owned. One thing was Yuuri’s glasses. They had belonged to his father, and may not have appeared like much, but were made from expensive silver and blue agate. The other was Viktor’s hair, thick and glossy. If they were in front of an audience, Viktor would have washed and dried his luscious hair where they could see it. He thought that his hair was more precious than any Olympic medal. If Russian Royalty had lived in their tiny apartment, with all their riches, Yuuri would have cleaned his glasses every time they met. He knew that no king had anything as valuable as his glasses.  


So now Viktor’s hair fell about him, shining like a falling stream of cold, white water. It wasn’t as long as it had been when he was young, but he was still proud of it nonetheless. And then he tied it back, nervously and quickly. He stopped for a moment and stood still while a tear fell down the apple of his cheek. He walked back to the door and put back on his tan trench coat. With the bright light catching his eyes, he moved out the door and down the street.  
Where he stopped, the sign said: “Миссис Лоскутов. Волосы Статьи всех видов.” [“Mrs. Loskutov. Hair Articles of All Kinds.”] He opened the door, the bell chiming loudly as he walked in. Mrs. Loskutov, frail, too white, and dead-eyed, looked at him.  


“I know it is not much, but will you buy my hair?” asked Viktor.  


“I buy hair,” said Mrs. Loskutov. “Pull it down and let me look at it.” As he pulled the hair tie away from his head, his hair spread out across his shoulders and over his chest.  


Running her thin, withered and ringed fingers through it, Mrs. Loskutov replied, “Twenty-five rubles.”  


“Oh, quickly, please, give it to me!” Viktor said. 

The hours after felt as if they were just a few moments. Viktor flew from eyeglass shop to eyeglass shop, desperately hoping that one was open—Yuuri’s glasses had broken the week previous. He taped them up poorly with duct tape and said that they could worry about his glasses later since money was so tight. His eyesight was so bad that they couldn’t just find a cheap pair of prescription lenses to use in the meantime, and that the lenses for his eyes would cost a lot of money. When he finally found a shop that was open, he begged the storekeeper for the necessary repair materials. It wasn’t an eyeglass repair shop, but rather a place to buy already-made eye and sunglasses. They didn’t have the small kits needed to repair glasses there, nor did they have lenses to replace Yuuri’s broken ones, but Viktor pressed on. He knew how much Yuuri loved his glasses, how they had been passed down throughout his family, changing lenses every couple of years, but the blue staying bright nevertheless. The lenses framed Yuuri’s soft, supple face and brightened his bourbon-brown eyes, giving his expression a pointed and endearing uniqueness that Viktor found irresistible. With the pitiful duct tape around the bridge of the glasses, Yuuri found it troublesome to simply keep them on his face. But, if they could be repaired, then he wouldn’t have to worry about that. He wouldn’t have to worry about losing his family’s heirloom, and one of his most distinguishable features.  


When Viktor arrived home, his mind quieted some. He could think a little more clearly. He wanted to cover the sad marks of what he had done. Within forty minutes of arriving back at his apartment, Viktor’s head looked a bit better. Though he was so attached to it, Viktor felt nostalgic seeing his hair as it had been in his early twenties. Now thirty, he enjoyed the connection to his youth that growing his hair had given him. But, having been quite literally cut short, Viktor felt nostalgic when he looked in the mirror, remembering his skating career at its height, all of the time that he had spent with Makka in his first year in Hasetsu, when Yuuri first proposed to him in Barcelona… He stood in the mirror for a long time.  
“If Yuuri doesn’t kill me,” he said to himself, “before he looks at me a second time, he’ll say I look like I did when we first met. But what could I do—oh! What could I do when seventeen rubles and twelve kopeks?”  


At seven, Yuuri and Viktor’s dinner was ready. Yuuri, though characteristically late to other obligations was never late to dinner. He held the lenses and repair kit in his hand and sat near the door where Yuuri always entered at this time of day, listening for his steps and standing when he heard them approach. The door opened, and Yuuri stepped in. He had purple bags under his eyes, likely from all of the work that he had been putting himself through in the months prior so that he and Viktor could support themselves. Yuuri stopped in the door, looking at Viktor the way that a hunting dog would when he neared a bird. His eyes looked inquisitively to Viktor, and there was an expression in his face that Viktor couldn’t quite understood. It made him nervous, but when Yuuri looked at him more pressingly, he realized that he wasn’t wearing his glasses. Perhaps they had bothered him enough, and he couldn’t stand to deal with them any longer. His eyes squinted pathetically at Viktor as he closed the door behind him.  


“Viktor… did you cut your hair?” He said, setting his messenger bag on the floor and kicking off his shoes.  


“I-I did… yeah,” Viktor replied. “I sold it. I didn’t have enough money to buy you a gift, and it was long enough to sell to that creepy wig lady up the street. It’ll grow back, and you already know, but my hair grows quickly!”  


“It’s gone? All of your hair?” Yuuri asked, slowly approaching Viktor, rubbing his eyes and reaching up toward his head to feel his hair.  


“It is. I hope that you like it… it’s not much different than it was when we met, right? We’ve been struggling so much lately, but I still wanted to get something for you… It’s not a lot, but I couldn’t bear to not get something for you.”  


Pulling back, Yuuri let out a hardy laugh. Viktor stood confused, waiting to understand the reason behind Yuuri’s laughter.  


“Here, Vitya,” Yuuri said, running his hand through his hair and setting a small box on the table before them. Viktor’s slender fingers tore off the paper, and then he, too, burst into laughter. A golden comb, the same gold of his beloved skates, were now in his hands. He had seen them in a shop window long ago and wanted it so desperately for his newly growing hair, but couldn’t afford it. There were small jewels encrusted in it, perfect for Viktor’s quickly growing hair. He had looked at it with little hope that he would own it in the near future, but now it was his, and his hair was gone. But he held the comb close to his chest and looked at Yuuri, exclaiming, “My hair grows so fast, Yuuri!”  


And then he jumped up and cried, “Oh, oh!” Yuuri hadn’t yet seen his gift, and he held it out to him in his open hand. The fluorescent light of the room caught the plastic wrapping of the lenses that Viktor begged from the shopkeeper, shining softly as if with his own warmth and loving spirit.  


“It’s just what you need, right? To fix the cracked lenses and bridge? I begged the shopkeeper to fix this up for me, but now you won’t have to worry about buying a new pair of glasses. Give me your glasses, we can probably fix them right now!”  


Taking his coat off and wrapping it on the dining room chair, Yuuri sat down and smiled, giving his eyes a gentle rub. “Viktor,” he said, “let’s put our Christmas gifts away and keep them a while. They’re too nice to use now. I sold the glasses to get the money for the comb... whatever you made smells delicious, Viktor!”  
Dumbfounded, Viktor knelt down to Yuuri. “You sold them?! You said they were your father’s! I thought that you loved them?”  


“Well, of course I did, but I can use contacts for now. A new pair of glasses is too expensive at the moment… it’s fine, really. I couldn't bear to not get anything for you, either," Yuuri said. "I remember how much you wanted that comb since you were growing your hair out again."  


Laughing, feeling tears pool in his eyes once more, Viktor and Yuuri embraced one another. Their lives had been brought together by such strange circumstances, that it was no wonder their attempts at giving gifts would be that of a comedy. Viktor placed a gentle kiss on Yuuri’s supple, still-cold cheek, and Yuuri cupped Viktor’s face close to his own. They stood, sharing the warmth from one another, and felt the love that had always gone above any material possession. Viktor could feel the weight of his ring on his finger and clutched Yuuri closer, again reminded of how he desired to stay with him for an eternity, and an eternity more.

**Author's Note:**

> HI EVERY1!! HAPPY HOLIDAYS!! AND HAPPY VIKTOR BDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i've always loved the gift of the magi ever since I read it as a child. i thought that it would be wonderful as a vikyuu fic. i hope you all enjoy this and have a warm christmas!


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